Youth Justice

Lord Oates Excerpts

Wednesday 20th May 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Levitt (Lab)]

I thank the noble Baroness for her question. In March, we committed to devolving youth, remand and turnaround funding to the Welsh Government for 2027 and 2028. This is part of a broader commitment, as the noble Baroness knows, between the UK and the Welsh Government to establish a clearer and stronger role for the Welsh Government in the delivery of youth justice. It is definitely the intention of this Government to try not to, as it were, empire-build by bringing more things into the centre, but to ensure that we can pool funding and expertise in regional areas, as well as in Wales, in order to ensure that local areas can deliver things for the communities that they serve.

[Lord Oates (LD)]

Does the Minister recognise that the Youth Justice Board was a jewel in the crown of the 1997 Labour Government, dramatically reducing the number of young people in the juvenile secure estate while reducing youth offending and recidivism? Does she also recognise that the powers and responsibilities given to the Youth Justice Board were removed from the Home Office because the youth cohort was relatively small and often ignored, and there was a real danger in going back into the Ministry of Justice that it would be again? Finally, will she explain why the Government, having commissioned a review of the Youth Justice Service by Steve Crocker, have chosen to largely ignore the outcome of that review?

[Baroness Levitt (Lab)]

I am grateful to the noble Lord for his question. I think he and I are looking forward to speaking to each other about this tomorrow, as I shall be answering a Question on pretty much the same subject. I repeat that there is no intention to abolish the Youth Justice Board, but there is a policy, following a Cabinet Office review of arm’s-length bodies, not just the Youth Justice Board, of ensuring that matters that we believe should be retained within various Ministries and departments in order to ensure democratic accountability are returned there. That is the reason we have taken the view that we have. As the noble Lord rightly says, the review was commissioned. Our view was that we needed to go further than the recommendations that were made.